Tension as Catalonians prepare to cast their votes in the independence referendum on 1 October. Clashes between the police and citizens were reported throughout the region.
Photograph: Gargano/IPA/REX/Shutterstock

With fake news apparently leaking from every media orifice, you’d have hoped for a little more diligence over those Catalan referendum demonstration figures and images. Over to the fact-checkers …

“We’ve seen a lot of fake pictures on people who have been hurt by the police, but were really pictures from different demonstrations,” said the head checker for the El Objective TV show. He produced web pictures of bleeding protesters that went viral – but they were old stuff from a miners’ strike five years ago. That woman who had all her fingers broken. She hadn’t. That six-year-old boy, paralysed by police brutality? It didn’t happen. Serious injuries on the day: just two.

When you plough through this account and many others, different perspectives begin to surface. Not that the civil guard’s truncheon-wielding interventions weren’t violent and frightening. But that the reporting of what happened – including the detail of those 893 injured voters – hadn’t been independently checked. Which is important, even at this stage. There’s no bonus to fear and loathing built on frail foundations.